We go through our favorite games of the year.

The game that won me over so many great titles in 2016 is Stardew Valley, a farming simulator, and an independent game. Yes, it is just that good a game.

Eric Barone a.k.a. ConcernedApe started working on the title in 2011. After it got Greenlighted by Steam, the game ended up getting a massive cult-following even pre-release, with a subreddit dedicated to it and ConcernedApe regularly updating and posting in it to ensure feedback from the early backers of the project.

I grew up playing a lot of Harvest Moon, and it’s easy to see shades of that game in Stardew Valley. In fact, it started out as a followup, but ended up evolving into so much more. With ConcernedApe working on each aspect be it pixel art, design, code or that magical soundtrack, the game took inspiration from the best parts of Harvest Moon, Terraria, Animal Crossing, and Rune Factory to achieve a massively positive critical reception on release.

A welcome change from Harvest Moon is the removal of the year limit, which has led players to min-max activities on their farms, in order to make it profitable and earn the big bucks as soon as possible. Stardew Valley adds to its rustic allure by doing away with that whole system and letting the player choose how much he wants to accomplish and how soon. The premise of the game is that your character moved away from his hectic city-life to manage his grandfather's farm.

How you choose to manage the farm is entirely up to you: go fishing all day, farm, scavenge or dig up ores. Any way you choose to make a living is an acceptable way to earn gold in the game. Don't feel like doing any of the above? Go about in town and meet the endearing small-town characters and indulge in the drama unfolding between them.

In what was one of the most heart-warming gaming news stories of the year, devoted fans went so far as to offering to buy the game for people on the subreddit, who were considering pirating it, to support ConcernedApe's dedication to the title. Massgifting of the game followed amongst the community and anyone interested in giving the game a shot.

The title doesn't just capitalize on its nostalgic value but goes on to win in just about every metric I personally set for a good game. The game stands out to me as everything right with the indie game development scene. A love letter to fans of the genre, a love letter to people who supported the game throughout its production, and a solid playing experience to boot, Stardew Valley is my Game of the Year.

If you had told me in January that I’d be writing about a team-based multiplayer shooter as my pick for game of the year 2016, I’d have told you that you were crazy.

If you had told me some time later that I’d be writing about a team-based multiplayer shooter released by Blizzard, of all studios, in the same year as Darkest Dungeon, XCOM 2, Hitman, Hyper Light Drifter, Dark Souls III, Civilization VI, Devil Daggers, Stellaris, Kerbal Space Program, Titanfall 2, DOOM, The Last Guardian, and Final Fantasy XV, I’d have told you that you were certifiably insane and should voluntarily check yourself into an institution.

I would, of course, have been wrong.

Blizzard has knocked it out of the park. Even for someone as jaded as I am about some of Blizzard’s choices in the last decade, disappointed with the way team-based shooters have gone since the original Team Fortress (the Quakemod, not the commercial product), and with whom the character and art design of Overwatch initially didn’t resonate to the least degree, the game is a stellar example of feel, attention to detail, and beautifully interwoven gameplay systems. Simply put, it’s the game that brought me back to not just team shooters, but the online shooter community. I likely wouldn’t have spent half the time I did with the fantastic Titanfall 2, if it weren’t for the gateway that Overwatch opened up for me.

Despite a relatively small amount of content, nearly everything presented is impeccable. Whether you’re talking about individual characters, interesting character interactions, artistic flourishes or the quality of the maps, everything in Overwatch is a cut above. Matchmaking and ranking issues continue to exist, and it certainly can’t be said that Overwatch is a perfect package, but the quality gap remains immense compared to many other major genre releases.

The title has avoided the pitfalls of excessive DLC or microtransaction nonsense, keeping its loot box system lean and friendly. It is one of the few titles I would feel comfortable spending a few bucks on because of the drip feed of free content available to all players (though the current winter event is likely to be the first time I actually buy a couple of loot boxes as a show of developer support).

The characters themselves are where the game shines, and in how they move and feel, attack and defend. The fact that Overwatch manages to keep up with the ultrafast perfection of DOOM says a lot, and it does so by offering the sheer variety of 23 different characters, all fun to play. If Overwatch hadn’t been such a consistent distraction, and if DOOM hadn’t entirely screwed up its multiplayer component, the latter would have easily been my shooter, surprise, and quite probably even game of the year. So a title that initially pushed me away but eventually offered an embrace I found myself unable to refuse, says a lot about Overwatch. For this, and for the upwards of 230 hours of fun it has provided me with both, friends and strangers, it earns my choice as Game of the Year.

The Uncharted games have always been famous for the insane amount of hard work and polish put into their development and Uncharted 4 is the best of the lot. The PS4 already offers games with spectacular visuals but this fourh installment in the franchise stands tall among them.

For the first time in the history of the series the story of an Uncharted game shunned supernatural element altogether and instead focused on the mystery of legendary pirates who came together to establish a state of their own and to pool all their treasure. Personally speaking, I have never considered the storytelling in Uncharted games to be exceptional; it was always the superb characterization and off-the-charts voice acting that pulled me in, yet in my opinion the story of Uncharted 4 is the best in the series. This is my Game of the Year without a doubt!

If Uncharted 4 indeed turns out to be a swansong for Nate and the gang, which I don't really want it to be, then Naughty Dog can leave the franchise with their heads held high.

The Final Fantasy series has been a significant part of my life, and the big step Square Enix took to bring changes to the franchise in the new installment, in my opinion, was a huge success. This is a controversial view though, as a lot of longtime fans weren’t happy with the new direction that the FFXV took, but I felt the innovation really elevated the game game to the next level.

I felt that Final Fantasy XV employed both amazing game mechanics and animations. The game also features jaw-dropping visuals. I still remember seeing a demon so big and majestic that I was just staring at the screen thinking, “Wow, that’s beautiful.”

It’s true that Final Fantasy XV isn’t always the most fluid as far as the main narrative is concerned - the game has numerous plot holes. But the hard work that developers put into the game is clear from the interactions between the four main characters alone. The light humor, and bond between these friends soothes you in a way you didn’t think a video game could. For all these reasons and more, I have marked down Final Fantasy XV as my Game of the Year.

In a year dominated by Overwatch, Titanfall, and Gears of War, there was one first-person shooter that clearly stood out above the rest as far as far as its campaign mode was concerned, the World War I epic, Battlefield 1.

The game seizes you from the moment Dream a Little Dream of Me starts playing and you’re thrust into the middle of a war zone, watching the soldiers you’re in control of fall one by one, and doesn't let go. The opening segment adds weight to the darker parts of war, as the disclaimer in the beginning says: you’re not expected to survive.

The moving opening segues into the individual stories of each character, giving a variety to the campaign as you go from driving a tank to flying a plane, while experiencing each faction’s story, be it the Germans, the Turks, or the British. The variety paired with real-life elements (the sandstorm effect is in a league of its own) is what sets this game apart from the rest, and has made it such a treat to play because at the end of the day, you may not be the best at it but you’ll have a darn good time playing it.

The multiplayer mode harkens back to Battlefield 4, with each squad capturing a base and holding it. Admittedly, it’s hard for a newbie to adjust particularly when they’re sniped out of the blue with high powered guns (while they are equipped with a meager pea shooter), but the initial frustration slowly subsides especially if you’re playing with friends – coordinating over the party chat (which often ends in bickering) is a treat on its own. Filled with a plethora of colorful characters, Overwatch may be crowned game of the year, but for all the history buffs and visceral FPS fans, Battlefield 1 holds a special place, and is my Game of the Year.

It was an especially strong year for video games. Battlefield 1 took us through the horrors of war, Titanfall 2 gave us the thrill of piloting a mech on the battlefield, and Civilization 6 kept us clicking for another turn until the birds were chirping again outside our windows in the morning.

Stardew Valley showed us how one developer can match big studios in terms of addictive gameplay, Final Fantasy XV exemplified how strong characterization can function as the heartbeat of an RPG, Dark Souls III continued to raise the bar in delicious difficulty, The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine took fantasy role-playing to new heights, Uncharted 4 once again managed to showcase Hollywood style storytelling in a video game, and XCOM 2 put the 'tactical' in 'tactical combat'.

In the end though, the title that ended up being IGN Pakistan's Game of the Year, was Overwatch.

There are numerous reasons why Overwatch stands tall in a crowd of excellent games. On the surface, it's a tremendously fun squad-based shooter that pays homage to every quality shooter you can think of, from Quake, Unreal Tournament, to Team Fortress, Counter-Strike and Titanfall, while featuring a colorful art direction so unique, that only Blizzard could have created it. But scratch beneath the surface, and you realize that this is a highly sophisticated game fine-tuned to perfection. Like others, I have put at least two hundred hours into Overwatch, and I am still discovering something new about the characters or maps every day. Like a great song or a great poem, every element of Overwatch is deliberate and every element has meaning.

Certainly, Overwatch had some competition in the multiplayer sphere, especially from Battlefield 1 and Titanfall 2, but Blizzard's interface alone is far superior to that of those titles. This aside, Blizzard - in true Blizzard fashion - has continued to update Overwatch with a wealth of content, especially through seasonal games, aesthetic updates, and more playable characters. In fact, there are several new heroes rumored to debut in 2017. It's no wonder that Overwatch boasts 20 million, yes 20 million players across the world. You can only expect its fandom to grow.

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